Ignition apparatus



Patented oct. 3, 1922.

UNITED STATES 1,430,873 PATENT oEFxcE.

LIONEL M. WOOLSON, OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN, ASSIGNOR T O BIJ UR MOTOR APPLIANCE COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE.

IGNITION APPARATUS.

riginal application ledNovember 16, 1916, Serial No. 131,748. Divided and this application illed August 20, 1919.

To all whom z't may concern:

Be it known that I, LIONEL M. WooLsoN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Detroit, in the county of Wayne and State of Michigan, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Ignition. Apparatus, 0f which the following is a clear and-exact description, such as will enable others skilled in the art to'which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to ignition apparatus for internal combustion engines, lmore particularly to means for controlling the time ofl spark.

One of the objects of the invention 1s to provide ignition apparatus of simple construction and eicient action, the parts of which shall be readily accessible. I

Another object is to provide in apparatus of the above type elastic means for securing vthe electrical impulses at the proper time under all conditions of operation.

' lOther objects will be in part obvious and in part pointedA out hereinafter.

The invention accordingly consists in the features of construction, combinations ofel'ements and arrangement of parts -whlch will be exemplified in the vconstruction hereinafter set forth and the scope of the application of which will be indicated in the following claims.

In the accompanying drawingsl wherein is shown one of various possible embodiments of the several features of this invention, Fig. 1 is a-view in longitudinal section showing my apparatus, Figs. 2 and 3 are detial views of the manual shifting means.

Similar reference characters refer to similar parts throughout the different views of the drawings. y

` This application is a division of my copending application Serial No. 131,748, filed November 16, 1916.

Referring now to the accompanying drawings there is shown an enclosing casting having a generally cylindrical wall 1 enclosing a chamber 2 within which is disposed the driving shaft 3 journaled at one end in a ball bearing 4 adjacent the base 5 of the casting and at the other end in another ball bearing 6 lodged in the cover 7 on top of the casting. A generally cylindrical wall 9 atrfiight angles to` wall 1 and integral Serial No. 318,766.

operating movable contact 13, the greater being mounted on a base plate 14 and adapted to be actuated by a tappet 15 extending through base 14 contacting the cam as at 16, and carrying a crosspiece 16 at the other end on which the movable Contact 13 is mounted. The base plate 14, it is noted closes an opening 57 in the cover 7 through which the tappet 15 extends. rIhe breaker is enclosed by a cap 17 secured in place by any desired means the details of which are not essential to'this invention. The cam shaft preferablyalso drives the distributor brush 60,

mounted upon one end thereof and leading the .secondary ignition current to the terminals of the distributor indicated at 18.

The details of the timer anddistributor are neither fully shown nor described, as the subject-matter thereofy taken by itself constitutes no part of the invention claimed herein. The details ofa preferred form of timer and distributor construction to which my invention is applicable are fully shown and described in my parent application above identified. It is to be understood, however, that the present invention 'is of broader application to ignition systems and apparatus generally.

Extending transversely through the casting is a rock shaft 21 lodged in bearings 22. A channel shaped bracket 23 is secured to said rock shaft by a screw as at 24 and a yoke 25 is pivoted insaid bracket by pins as at 26. The' yoke extends in a groove 27 formed in a collar member 28 encircling the driving shaft 3. A sleeve 29 encircles said driving shaft and iits into an internally cut away portion 30 in the collar 28 resting upon a shoulder 31 thus formed in said collar. A spiral gear 33 has a hub 34 encircling the sleeve 29 at its upper end, and a pin 35 passes through vthe shaft the sleeve and hub 34 to compel the spiralgear 33 to rotate with the driving shaft and sleeve. 7The teeth of the gles thereto, the teeth of which are cut at a correspondingly small angle, said latter gear being mounted on the cam shaft 10.

A centrifugal governor 38 is mounted to rotate with the driving shaft, said governor having an integral in 39' extendin transversely of the driving shaft 3 an sleeve 29 through an elongated slot 40. The governor preferably has a base plate 41 with upturned ends 42 and bears preferably a pair of lead weights 43 one against each of the upturned ends 42 said weights being held in lace by pins as at 44. The weights are prefiirably cut away on one side as vat 45 to come into snug engagement with the sleeve when the governor is in the position shown in Fig. l. A link 46 is pivoted to an eye 47 forming a part of the governor base 41 and is pivoted to the pin 35 at 'its other end. The pin 35 extends through a slot 48 in the sleeve 29 and through a somewhat longer slotv 49 in the driving shaft. A second link 50 is pivoted to an eye 51 symmetrically arranged with respect to eye 47 on the governor base 41, and this link is pivoted at its other end to a slidable collar 53 encircling the sleeve. A coil spring 54 encircles the sleeve 29 resting upon the top of the collar 28 at its lower end and contacting the collar 53, at its upper end.

For manually adjusting the timing of the spark, I provide as at 55 an arm rigid ywith rock shaft 21. By turning this arm, yoke 25 may be moved upwardly or downwardly and with it the collar member 28. A channel stop member 56 within the casting l straddles the cross bar of the bracket 23 and limits the range of adjustment thereof and .the timer and distributor.

consequently that of the yoke 25.

In operation the driving shaft 3 is connected at its lower end to be driven from the engine and transmits its torque through pin 35 to the spiralgear 33 and thence to the spiralgear 37 and cam shaft 10 to drive As the speed of the engine increases the centrifugal weights 43 fly outwardly urging the links 46 and 50 into positions more nearly arallel to the shaft 3. fAs a consequence co lar 53 is urged downwardly compressing spring 54 and pin 35 -is urged upwardly within the slots 48 and 49 in the sleeve and in the shaft. When the pin reaches the end of the sleeve slot 48 it will upon further movement carry with it the entire sleeve 29. The upward movement of the gear 33 as is obvious will cause a rotation of gear 37 and with it of the cam shaft 10 independently of the rotation of the driving shaft 3. Thus the timer cam 11 is rotated to automatically advance the spark as the engine speed increases and the faster the engine, the greater the upward movement of gear 33 caused by the governor and the greater the advance of the spark.

When the engine slows down the centrifugal force is diminished and spring 54 overcoming the reduced force moves the collar member 53 upwardly toward the position shown in Fig. 1, thus urging the pin 35 and with it the gear 33 downwardly. This will cause a rotation of the gear 37 in the reverse direction thus again retarding the time of the ignition spark. The amount of retardation is is obvious will depend on` the engine s ee pWhen it is desired to effect they spark adjustment manually the arm 55 is turned in the appropriate direction preferably through linka e (not shown) connected to the dash board, to rotate the rock shaft 21. The bracket member 23 thus rotates with the rock shaft as an axle and through pins 26 it causes rectilinear movement of the yoke 25 and therefore of the collar 28. By this manual adjustment the sleeve is moved upwardly or downwardly and as one or the other end of the sleeve slot 48 reaches the pin 35 it will cause an upward or downward movement of the gear 33, depending on the direction of rotation of arm 55. This movement of the gear 33 brings about spark advance or retard in the manner obvious from the above description of automatic adjustment.

When the timer contacts 12-13 require cleaning or adjustment it is lmerely necessary to remove the cover 17 Whereu on these contacts are readily accessible. ith the cover removed the operation of the contacts under ,actual working conditions may conveniently be observed.

If it is desired to remove the contacts for any purpose it is merely necessary to unscrew the holding screws whereupon the base plate 14 with the entire contact construction together with tappet 15 may be removed as a unit without in any way interfering with the remainder ofthe construction.

It will thus be seen that there is herein described apparatus in which the several features of this invention are embodied, and which apparatus in its action attains the various objects of the invention and is well suited to meet the requirements of practical use. l

As many changes could be made in the above construction and many apparently widely different embodiments of this invention could be made without departing from the scope thereof, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the 'accompanying drawings shally be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters-Patent is v 1. In apparatus of theclass described,

out turning said first shaft, a gear on saidr second shaft also having spiral teeth, oo-

operating so that said first shaft may drivev said second shaft, whereby a longitudinal movement of said -gear on said first shaftwill cause an adjusting turn of said second shaft without turning said first shaft, and automatic means for effe/:tin longitudinal first shaft.

2. In apparatus of the class described, a combined cam shaft driving and automatic spark' adjusting means, comprising a driving shaft, a gear rotatable therewith, and

- capable of longitudinal rmovement thereon,

a centrifugal device rotatable with the driving shaft, and connected at one side with the gear, a collar member on the shaft connected with the other side of the centrifugal device, and a spring to store energy when the collar member is shifted by the centrifugal device.

3. Inapparatus of the class described, a

combined cam shaftvdriving, automatic and manual spark adjusting means, comprising a driving shaft, a sleeve' surrounding said shaft, a gear on said sleeve, said shaft, sleeve and gear being rotatable together, said sleeve being capable of longitudinal 'movement on said shaft, and of thereby effecting longitudinal movement of said gear, a centrifugal device rotatable with said shaft, and connected at one .side with said gear, a collar on said sleeve connected with the other side of said centrifugal device, an abutment near the end of said sleeve, a coil spring between said collar vand said'abutment, and manually operating means for cooperation with said sleeve for causing it to move on said shaft. j

4. In apparatus of the character described,

in combination, a shaft having a breakercam, a distributor mounted upon the end of said shaft, breaker contacts cooperating withsaid contacts, parallel to said shaft, whereby said distributor and said breaker contacts may each be removed as a unit from the mechanism and reapplied independently of each other, and a combined manual and automatic adjustment of the spark advance.

6. In apparatus of the character described, in combination, a casting, a vertical driving shaft thereon, a horizontal cam shaft, a driving connection between said shafts, a distributor connected to one 4end of saidcam shaft, a pair of timer contacts, a base supporting the same, and mounted upon said casting for .cooperation of said contacts with the cam of] said camy shaft, and. means responsive to the speed of the engine, to adjust said driving connection to effect a rotary ad'ustment of said cam and of said distri utor relative to said driving shaft.

7. In combination, a casting, a vertical drivin y shaft journaled therein, a horizontal cam s aft journaled therein and spaced from said driving shaft, a spiral gear driving connection between saidv shafts, a distributor connected-to one end of said cam shaft, and a plate removably secured to cover an opening in said casting and carrying timer contacts operatively connected to sald cam shaft through said opening.

8. Ignition apparatus comprising in combination, a driving shaft, a cam shaft, spiral gearsdrivingly connecting said shafts, a centrifugal device coaxial of and rotatable with the driving shaft and connected tovone of said gears to cause shifting thereof along the corresponding shaft as the speed varies.

9. Ignition apparatus comprising in combination, a driving shaft, a spiral gear slidably mounted thereon, a cam shaft, a spiral gear fixed thereon and meshing with said first gear, and a centrifugal device coaxial of and rotatable with the driving shaft and connected to said slidable gear to cause displacement thereof as the speed varies.

10. Ignition apparatus comprising in combination, a driving shaft, a spiral gear slidably mounted thereon, a cam shaft, a spiral gear fixed thereon and meshing with said first gear, a centrifugal device coaxial of and rotatable with 'the driving-shaft and connected to said slidable gear, manual shifting means, and a slidable sleewe encircling said driving shaft and operatively connecting said manual means to said slida-ble gear.

In testimony whereof, I have signed my name to this specification this 11th day of August, 1919. I i

LIONEL M. WOOLSON.

GQy 

